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Criterion Channel Is a Streaming Miracle. Here are 25 Movies You Should Watch Now

April 10, 2020/ 138 min/ Sean Fennessey

For the Criterion Channel's first anniversary, Sean starts with five of his own picks. Then he calls up a dozen directors, critics, and friends of the show, one quarantine recommendation apiece, before closing with the channel's programmer.

20 films across 3 segments.

AI-generated This episode was transcribed and analyzed with AI models. The matches aren't perfect — expect the occasional misheard title or a link to the wrong film.

Sean's five fast oneshis own picks to start

The Big Knife 1955

Robert Aldrich's dark portrait of how Hollywood felt in 1955, with Jack Palance as an actor in crisis and Ida Lupino. A movie about making movies, and one of the least known.

Tokyo Drifter 1966

Seijun Suzuki's neon, hyper-monochromatic crime film, probably his masterpiece. Where Japanese cinema went after Kurosawa and Mifune.

The Daytrippers 1996

Greg Mottola, the bard of Long Island, on a family car trip to catch a cheating husband. Sean's hometown too; it echoes inside him.

Harlan County USA 1976

Barbara Kopple's documentary on the Brookside coal strike, 180 miners and their wives against Duke Power. A precursor to American Factory.

Friends of the show pick one guest, one Criterion film

Picked by Josh Safdie

Atlantic City 1980

Louis Malle's regional film with Burt Lancaster as a bottom-rung gangster and Susan Sarandon dressing her arms with lemons. Malle builds it from small moments; Safdie called back to keep talking about it.

Picked by Liz Hannah

Monterey Pop 1968

D. A. Pennebaker's 1967 festival film, Janis Joplin's and Otis Redding's breakout. Communal comfort viewing that still plays for new generations.

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie poster

Picked by Sam Esmail

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie 1972

His favorite film of all time. Buñuel's six rich friends who can never sit down to a meal, an essay on class that refuses to cohere into plot. It hasn't dated at all.

Picked by Amy Nicholson

Thank God It's Friday 1978

A disco movie so disco that Donna Summer plays a wannabe star and won an Oscar for 'Last Dance.' Young Jeff Goldblum as the sleazy club owner. Leonard Maltin called it a bomb; she loved it.

Picked by Peyton Reed

Paper Moon 1973

Peter Bogdanovich in black and white, Ryan and Tatum O'Neal, Madeline Kahn as Trixie Delight. Reed saw it at nine, and it's guided his work since: comedy that's loose and carefully shot at the same time.

Picked by Miranda July

A Room with a View 1985

The movie she saw at 14 and confused with her own coming of age. Helena Bonham Carter's breakdown, all-out abandon, is the game plan for July's life.

Picked by Ari Aster

Profound Desires of the Gods 1968

His way into a Japanese New Wave binge (Imamura, Oshima, Teshigahara). Imamura's longest film, a huge flop that haunts his body of work; an influence on Midsommar.

Picked by Chris Ryan

Le Samouraï 1967

Jean-Pierre Melville with Alain Delon, the Rosetta Stone for the minimalist hitman film. You can see it in Drive and Ronin, and Brad Pitt studied Delon for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

Picked by Barry Jenkins

Picnic at Hanging Rock 1975

Peter Weir's film, rarely mentioned, put in front of Jenkins in the Leftovers writers' room by Damon Lindelof. Atmospherics, colonialism, sexual hysteria, grounded supernatural mystery.

Picked by Erin Lee Carr

The Lady Vanishes 1938

Skips past the famous Hitchcocks, Psycho and Vertigo, for a train whodunit that's an early study in gaslighting. Carr, who makes psychological true crime, watched it eating stone crab in Florida.

Picked by Benny Safdie

The Harder They Fall 1956

Bogart's last film, from Budd Schulberg, with Rod Steiger building up a seven-foot Argentine boxer for the mob. Benny came to it through Schulberg's book Ringside.

Picked by Benny Safdie

On the Waterfront 1954

The mammoth he'd never touched until now. Brando's 'contender' speech, but it's Steiger's wordless breakdown in the back of the car that floored him.

Picked by Knox Dobbins

M 1931

Amanda outsourced her pick to her father, the Criterion superfan. Fritz Lang's serial-child-killer Berlin, frightening for the period as much as the crime. He switched from Sweet Smell of Success at the last minute.

Picked by Alex Ross Perry

The Ascent 1977

Larisa Shepitko, from the household that made Come and See. Two people surviving the tundra, no decisive victories, the bleakest Russian WWII fatalism. Won the top prize at Berlin.

Picked by Adam Neiman

The Stranger 1946

Orson Welles' third film, a propulsive noir with Welles as a Nazi hiding in a Connecticut town and Edward G. Robinson on his trail. He shot in long takes so producers had nothing to cut.

In conversationthe channel's programmer, on her own favorite

Penelope Bartlett on

Losing Ground 1982

Kathleen Collins, possibly the first feature by an American Black woman filmmaker. A sensual, cerebral study of a marriage, with Bill Gunn. Bartlett recommends the film and Collins' short stories both.

Also mentioned raised along the way

Josh Safdie also mentioned Kinetta Alps The Lobster My Dinner with Andre My Breakfast with Blassie The Lovers Police Story Police Story 2 Lenny Cooke Uncut Gems ...And the Pursuit of Happiness

Liz Hannah also mentioned Stop Making Sense Woodstock The Post Long Shot

Sam Esmail also mentioned Belle de Jour The Exterminating Angel That Obscure Object of Desire Parasite Once Upon a Time in Hollywood 2001: A Space Odyssey

Amy Nicholson also mentioned Klute Three Days of the Condor

Peyton Reed also mentioned Targets The Last Picture Show What's Up, Doc?Barry Lyndon American Graffiti The Sugarland Express Jaws Down with Love Bring It On Saint Jack The Cat's Meow Noises Off

Miranda July also mentioned Me and You and Everyone We Know Kajillionaire

Ari Aster's Japanese New Wave rundown The Insect Woman Intentions of Murder Vengeance Is Mine The Ballad of Narayama Death by Hanging In the Realm of the Senses Empire of Passion Pitfall The Face of Another Woman in the Dunes Hereditary Midsommar

Chris Ryan also mentioned Drive The Driver Ronin Army of Shadows Le Cercle Rouge

Barry Jenkins also mentioned Caché Moonlight Time of the Wolf

Erin Lee Carr also mentioned Psycho Vertigo North by Northwest

Benny Safdie also mentioned The Pawnbroker The Godfather Good Time